Third-party interface allowed for ease of goods and services taxpayers

New Delhi, Oct 4 (IANS) Moving a step forward towards the actual implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, GST Network, the company which is entrusted to create the logistical and IT backbone for the new tax regime, on Tuesday allowed taxpayers the option of third-party interfaces.

The step, aimed at providing ease to the taxpayers towards payment of the new indirect tax, invites banks, IT companies and financial technology companies to become GST Suvidha Providers (GSPs) to help the taxpayers from registration of entity to uploading of invoice details to filing of returns.

“GSTN, making a remarkable development, on Tuesday announced the final roadmap, process guidelines and implementation framework for IT/ITES/BFSI companies to become GSPs,” the company said in a statement here.

It is expected that the GSPs shall provide the tax payers with all services mentioned above in addition to maintaining their individual business ledgers (sales ledger and purchase ledger) and other value added services.

The GST System is going to have a government-to-business portal for taxpayers to access it, however, that would not be the only way for interacting with the GST system as the taxpayer via his choice of third party applications, which will provide all user interfaces and convenience via desktop, mobile, other interfaces, will be able to interact with the GST system.

Thus there will be two sets of interactions, one between the app user and the GSP and the second between the GSP and the GST System. It is envisaged that app provider and GSP could be the same entity. Another version could where data in required format directly goes to GSP-GST Server.

“Tax payer should have a choice to use third party applications which can provide varied interfaces on desktops, laptops and mobiles and can connect with GST System,” the statement said.

The third party applications will connect with GST system via secure GST System application programming interface. All such applications are expected to be developed by third party service providers who have been given a generic name, GST Suvidha Provider or GSP.

Any prospective applicant for GSP will need to meet a pre-qualification criteria for GSPs like digital presence and will need to give a bank guarantee and sign a contract with GSTN to become an authorised GSP.

“On signing of the contract, GSPs will get a unique license key for accessing the GST system. GSPs will be authenticated using this license key provided by GSTN,” it said.